Brotherhood and Betrayal
by Loke Groundrunner
Summary: Alternate ending for ROTS: Anakin kills Palpatine and becomes the new emperor with an ending you won't believe! Please R&R!


Brotherhood and Betrayal

"It's over, Anakin," said Obi-Wan, "I have the high ground." Obi-Wan stood on the shore of one of Mustafar's many lava lakes, while Anakin stood on a platform on the lake.

"You underestimate my power!" cried Anakin.

"Don't try it!"

"This is the end for you, Master!"

Anakin leaped above Obi-Wan and fired a blast of electricity at the Jedi, knocking him over. Anakin landed, used his foot to deactivate Obi-Wan's lightsaber and unleashed more lightning upon him.

"You were foolish to doubt the power of the dark side! You turned Padmé against me, I should kill you!" He raised his lightsaber and slashed Obi-Wan's spinal cord, nearly cutting the Jedi in two. Obi-Wan began to slide down the shore, closer to the raging inferno, crying in pain.

"I'm sorry it had to be this way, Master, but I have no choice. It's the only way I can save Padmé."

He walked away from the lake of fire, making the long trek back to his interceptor, by the time he returned to his ship; the cruiser that had belonged to Padmé had left. Her body was nowhere to be found. Tears flowed from his eyes as he climbed into the cockpit; he had failed to save his wife. Now she was missing and he would never know what became of her and her child. _Oh well,_ he thought, _She would be proud of what I am about to become._

Anakin penetrated Mustafar's atmosphere, linked up with a hyperdrive ring and blasted into hyperspace, heading for Coruscant, where his master would be pleased of his news.

Anakin Skywalker's ship emerged from hyperspace above Coruscant; he broke off from the hyperdrive ring and headed for the massive city world below.

A squadron of V-wings escorted him to the Galactic Senate building and flew back to their posts as he approached a docking veranda. The interceptor's cockpit flung open and Anakin stormed out, a group of the Emperor's royal guards greeted the young man and one said, "Lord Vader, the Emperor requests your company and wishes to hear how your mission fared." They lead Anakin down a series of halls until they came to the Emperor's chamber, the guards went their separate ways and Anakin opened the door.

Inside the room, a black-cloaked figure stood looking out a transparasteel window and turned to greet Anakin. "Ah, Lord Vader," said Darth Sidious, "you have returned."

"Yes I have, Master," Anakin replied

"The galaxy thanks you for destroying the Separatists, the Empire can truly flourish now."

"I have also eliminated the threat of Obi-Wan Kenobi, my Master."

"Yes, the Jedi are truly dead now," said Sidious, with an evil smile spreading across his wizened face. He pulled a lightsaber out of his robe and handed it to Vader. "You have earned this prize well, Lord Vader."

Anakin activated the lightsaber. The blade shone the color of blood; it splashed the color across the room, Anakin stared into the blade, in a sense it comforted him with its scarlet glow. _Now is the time, _he thought, _To show Sidious how powerful I have become._ Vader quickly plunged the blade into Sidious' chest. The man's face was frozen in shock and Vader removed the lightsaber from his former master's chest and Sidious collapsed to the ground, Vader raised his lightsaber and hacked the Sith Lord's body into pieces.

Anakin distinguished the weapon and cried, "Now I rule the galaxy!

He quickly called for security and told them, "You must hurry! An assassin has murdered the Emperor!"

At the Imperial Senate's afternoon conference, Anakin, along with Mas Amedda, the Chagrian Speaker of the Senate took the center platform of the Galactic Rotunda and the Senate was abuzz with murmuring.

"Order! Order!" bellowed Amedda, and the Rotunda fell quiet.

"It's Anakin Skywalker!" shouted a Gran senator. "He's a Jedi!" cried a Mon Calamarian. "Let's kill him!" shouted a human.

"Order! Let him speak!" cried Amedda again. The senators fell silent as Anakin began to speak.

"My friends," he began with much sorrow in his voice, "This has been a trying time for our Empire, our beloved Emperor Palpatine was murdered today by an assassin."

"Was the assassin a Jedi?" bellowed a senator nearby. The Senate murmured amongst themselves again and Amedda cried of order.

"No, I saw it with my own eyes," said Anakin, blinking back false tears, "Someone shot him from a balcony nearby the chamber. I tried to stop the perpetrator, but it got away before I could act."

This caused more whisperings in the Rotunda. Anakin said to them, "I was a very close friend of the Emperor's, he once told be that when he died, I should become his successor. That is my proposition to you all, that I become the next Emperor of the Galactic Empire." "All in favor!" cried Mas Amedda; the 'Hear hears' began slowly but soon the entire Rotunda echoed with the voices of the senator's cheers.

That evening, Emperor Skywalker sat in Palpatine's former office, dressed in a rancor leather tunic and a Tomuon wool robe, gazing out of the transparasteel window upon Coruscant thinking, _Oh Padmé, if you could only see me now! Those fools in the Senate fell right into my trap, soon there will be no Senate, only a pile of corpses to be eaten by maggots! Sidious should've seen it coming when I killed him, but I guess his power wasn't as great as he claimed. If you could only be here, my beautiful wife, we could rule this galaxy together; we could live for eternity, along with our child, but Obi-Wan turned you against me and made me hurt you. But he is dead now; at least I don't have that nuisance around to bother me anymore._

Then Anakin felt a disturbance in the Force, a ray of light against a sea of darkness. Standing in the doorway was a being dressed in a brown robe with a hood thrown over his face.

"Who are you? Guards, get rid of this intruder!" cried Anakin. "The guards aren't going to help you," said a vaguely familiar voice, "I've already taken care of them."

The figure threw off his hood, revealing the face of a green-eyed man in his late thirties with a honey-colored beard and hair; it was the face of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

"Obi-Wan!" cried Anakin, "You're supposed to dead!"

"But do I look dead to you, Anakin?" asked the older man, "It's very simple how I survived: right before you slashed my spinal cord, I entered a Jedi healing trance and was able to lessen the pain and damage you caused me. I managed to get aboard Senator Amidala's ship and escaped with her in tow."

"Padmé survived?" asked Anakin hopefully.

"I'm afraid not," replied Obi-Wan, "After we escaped from Mustafar, we headed to the medical center on Polis Massa, where she gave birth to a boy and girl, which she named Luke and Leia. She was so heartbroken about what had happened to you, she died immediately after giving birth."

"Lies!" shouted Anakin through clenched teeth, "she is alive! You're hiding her from me! You had an affair with her!"

"I never had an affair with no one," replied Obi-Wan calmly, "She died because she could no longer live, knowing the man she loved had become the very thing he had sworn to destroy."

"I've had it with you and your lies!" growled Anakin, he clenched his fist and Obi-Wan began to be caught in a Force hold and was choking. Obi-Wan stared into his former apprentice's eyes and used the Force to temporarily blind him. Anakin clutched his face and let Obi-Wan go and turned on his new lightsaber. "This ends here!" said Anakin. "Yes, unfortunately it does," said Obi-Wan, igniting his weapon. The room was awash in red and blue, as Anakim proclaimed, "No more lies!" He charged at Obi-Wan and their battle began.

Anakin swept his blade near his former master's feet and Obi-Wan parried with a counter thrust that removed Anakin's artificial arm. Anakin used the Force to hurl furniture at Obi-Wan, but the Jedi cut the debris as it came at him. Their lightsabers met in a brilliant show of color as Anakin fired lightning at Obi-Wan. The Jedi used his blade to absorb the energy as he cut a gash in Anakin's robe, the fallen Jedi jumped and kicked Obi-Wan in the face, knocking him over. Anakin stood over his former master and sneered, "This time, I'll make sure that I kill you." He raised his lightsaber and prepared to bring it down on Obi-Wan's chest, when the Jedi Master blocked the attack with his blade and slashed Anakin across the waist.

Anakin felt to the ground, clutching his wound, sobbing, "Padmé, Padmé, I'm so sorry….." Obi-Wan turned off his lightsaber and stepped on the one next to Anakin, smashing it into pieces. "Obi-Wan," whispered Anakin as tears wetted his face, "I was so foolish to buy into Palpatine's propaganda thinking that it would save Padmé, when it was like you said all along, that I am the reason she died."

He paused for a moment and let out a scream of despair, "I killed all those Jedi! I murdered younglings! I butchered countless beings, I even murdered the Separatist leaders without thinking that they were once good and I KILLED PADMÉ!" Anakin let out another scream, and he whispered, "Obi-Wan, can you ever forgive me for what I did?"

"Yes Anakin, I forgive you," said Obi-Wan.

"Obi-Wan, please take care of my children." Said Anakin quietly.

"They are safe in the hands of Lars family and Senator Organa," said Obi-Wan, "They were supposed to remain in hiding until they were old enough to learn the ways of the Force and would be able to defeat you and Palpatine."

"Thank you, Obi-Wan," whispered Anakin, "Thank you." Then the room fell silent and Obi-Wan scooped up the body of his friend and left.

It was night on Naboo when Obi-Wan and Yoda gathered in Theed Square, at the same funeral pyre where Qui-Gon Jinn had been cremated thirteen years before. Obi-Wan lit the hay beneath Anakin's body and watched as his friend disappeared in the flames.

Obi-Wan sobbed, "We were brothers, I loved him like a son."

"A good teacher, you were, Obi-Wan," said Yoda solemnly, "Fulfilled his destiny he did."

"What of the Order?" asked Obi-Wan, "We are the last of the Jedi, twenty-five thousand years of history, wiped clean in a day. What shall happen to the galaxy?"

"A new hope in the two children, we have," said Yoda, "rebuild the Jedi, they will. A new Order, rise it shall, in the future."

After Anakin's body had burned to ash, Obi-Wan and Yoda gathered the ashes, placed them in an urn and buried it alongside Padmé. The two lovers were together again, nothing would ever separate them again.


End file.
